Broken Throne (Red Queen #4.5)(56)
“They’re the same person,” I grumble, shutting them both up.
Just because we get news doesn’t mean we get it properly, in order, or entirely true. Some Rivermen and Freelanders spend their days sorting out what’s going on outside our borders, in the chaos that rules the Crownlands. Personally, I don’t bother with the rumors and just wait to see what solidifies into truth. Hallow cares more about any of it than I do, and tells me what I need to know.
“And Barrow isn’t a prisoner,” I add. I saw one of her broadcasts myself when I was far upriver, when the Red girl decried the Scarlet Guard and their agenda. She wore jewels and silk and spoke of the king’s kindness and mercy. “She joined up with the Nortan king willingly.”
On her bench, the Piedmont princess laughs sharply into her cup of water.
I cut a glance at her, only to find her already sneering. “Something funny about that?”
To my surprise, it’s Jem who answers. “The girl certainly was a prisoner, sir. No doubt about that.” Next to her, Daria bobs her head solemnly. “She spent most days locked in a room, guarded and chained, brought out only when that conniving little boy wanted to toy with her or use her voice to sow dissent.”
The rebuke is soft, but my stomach churns uncomfortably. If that’s true, then that’s a punishment I can’t imagine. I try to picture more of the lightning girl in my head. I remember the broadcast, her voice, but her face is obscure. I’ve seen it before, I know it. Brown hair, sharp eyes. But that’s all that comes. I can say the same of the monarchs ruling the Crownlands. A teenage boy rules Norta, the bejeweled Prince Bracken holds sway in Piedmont, a nymph king and queen control the Lakelands.
Jem’s gaze is still sharp on me, and I feel scolded in the lightning girl’s name. It’s my own fault. I try to stay out of things, try to keep my focus on what’s right in front of me. I don’t bother with great and terrible people of the world. I only know what I must of them to stay alive, stay ahead, and nothing more. And even that, it seems, is flawed.
I return to my meal in silence.
“Did you know any of them?” Jem asks, bold enough to address the princess with such a question.
I don’t expect her to answer. There are many Silvers in this world, but not all are so highborn or important. Especially those in the Freelands. They don’t know the distant names shaping the world behind us. But she continues to surprise me.
One corner of her mouth lifts in a grim smile. “I’ve met Maven, and his exiled brother. Long ago, when we were children of allied kingdoms. I can’t say I know Iris of the Lakelands.” Something in her voice sharpens. “But I know her family well enough.”
As with her coat, she tosses the rest of her water into the river, watching it splash overboard, swallowed into darkness. And she speaks no more.
THREE
Lyrisa
I’ve slept in better places, but I’ve also slept in worse.
The meager cushion of the keel bench has become my kingdom, the only domain that is mine. It’s more than I could say before, in my uncle’s household, where everything was given with the threat of being taken away.
A few hours into the night, I wish I hadn’t tossed away the guard’s coat, and instead had washed it or bleached it or taken scraps from it or something. The air cools over the river, and I’m left to shiver myself to sleep. True, a man died in that coat. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t still have a use.
Maybe some Red will find it and fix it up.
Or maybe Orrian will. And he’ll know where to follow.
The thought chills me more than the night air.
No, I tell myself. Orrian thinks you are dead a hundred miles away. With the rest of his guards, with sweet Magida, another corpse charred in a pit. Killed by an ambush, Scarlet Guard or Montfort or both. Silvers slaughtered, more casualties of however many wars we’re fighting now. He’ll never find you if you keep running. You’re safe on this river.
I almost believe it.
When I wake up before dawn, there’s a blanket tucked around my shoulders and feet, cocooning me in unfamiliar warmth. I can almost pretend I’m home, truly home, before Father died and we left the Tidewater for good. But that was six years ago, a far-gone memory, an impossibility.
I blink and I remember.
I’m on a Red Riverman’s keelboat, outnumbered and hated by everyone around me, with nowhere to go but forward. A dead girl on the run.
Though I feel it in every breath, fear will not serve me here. And these Reds must not know I’m terrified of what lies behind, of what might still be coming.
So I sit up, raising my chin, pretending to sneer at the threadbare, soft blanket drawn over my lap. As if it is the most offensive thing in the world, and not a kindness I do not deserve.
Before surveying the deck, I look behind us, at the stretching ribbon of the Ohius. It looks much the same as it did yesterday. Muddy water, green banks, the Lakelands stretching to the north, the Disputed Lands to the south. Both are empty, without a person or town in sight. Neither side of the river likes to be this close together, and they keep their distance beyond the few dock points along the miles.
“Looking for something?”
That self-important captain leans against the rail two yards away, arms crossed and legs angled, his entire body facing toward me. The gun at his hip is visible, even in the dim light before dawn. He has the audacity to grin, his idiotic gold tooth winking like a taunting star.